Mediating Role of Burnout Level in the Relationship between Occupational Stress and Aberrant Driver Behaviors among Professional Drivers

Work stress is defined as a reaction, due to mismatch between the requirements of the job and the qualifications of employees, that challenge coping abilities of employees. Burnout is one of the negative consequences that may emerge as a result of prolonged exposure to work stress. Occupational stress and burnout may lead to several negative individual and organizational outcomes among professional drivers, in addition to having the potential to influence driver behaviors. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between occupational stress, burnout, aberrant driver behaviors and accidents among professional drivers. For this purpose, data were collected from 120 male professional drivers. The participants were asked to answer demographic and stress questions, fill out Bergen Burnout Inventory-15 and Driver Behavior Questionnaire. Findings suggest that total burnout scores have an indirect effect on the relationship between occupational stress and aberrant driver behaviors. Furthermore, when those professional drivers who were involved in at least 1 accident and those who were not involved in any accidents are compared, it was found that drivers who were involved in accidents had lower exhaustive fatigue scores; higher frequencies of ordinary violations, errors, and lapses, as compared to those who were not. When considered from road safety framework, findings show that negative consequences of stress may extend beyond the individual and influence other road users as well. For this reason, we suggest that occupational stressors of professional drivers are defined and periodic meetings as well as health check-ups are done